Demi Lovato explains what makes her a badass

"When I look at someone who's out there partying excessively or rappers rapping about doing drugs, who people look up to, and think, Oh that's a G; that's a gangster. I think, You're actually being a giant p---y," Lovato says in the latest issue of Cosmopolitan. "Sorry, but those rockers in the '80s were the furthest thing from rock stars. They were so insecure and so lonely that they had to do these things to get them through the day. If you're spending your entire early 20s chasing the next party, what are you running away from?"

"That's not a badass. What's a badass is when you can sit through your problems and feel emotions when you don't want to have them," says the "Heart Attack" artist. "There have been nights where I've had to sit on my hands, because I want to act out, because I physically can't sit still in the pain I'm dealing with, from looking back and being bullied or other things that happened. And now, as hard as it may be, I will do that. That's what makes me a badass. Being a badass is handling your s--t."

But, she says, surviving was not always easy. She credits her first acting stint back in 1992, on the PBS kids show "Barney & Friends" — famous for its "I Love You" theme song — with helping her along the way.